


That Time When The Qliphoth Had Either One Masters or Two Master

by SenTheSeventh



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Am now irrationally attached to the Qliphoth, DMC Gen Week, Feelings, Gen, Humor, I can't believe there was no character tag for the Qliphoth before this, Surprisingly devoid of tentacles, The Author Regrets Nothing, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 02:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20107945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenTheSeventh/pseuds/SenTheSeventh
Summary: "The Qliphoth isn’t good at thinking. It’s a tree, albeit demonic, and its innate objectives are quite simple: get a master (usually the first thing it sees once it pokes out from the ground; a biologist would find a surprising amount of common points between Qliphoth and ducks), host them, grow from blood, create a fruit."





	That Time When The Qliphoth Had Either One Masters or Two Master

**Author's Note:**

> Betaread by the lovely Originblue (thank you so much again!) and written (late as ever) for DMC gen week!
> 
> This was inspired by a tidbit from the artbook that said that the Qliphoth, mistaking Dante for Vergil/Urizen, had protected him, fed him, and had created a throne for him.
> 
> Thus, madness was born.

The Qliphoth isn’t good at thinking. It’s a tree, albeit demonic, and its innate objectives are quite simple: get a master (usually the first thing it sees once it pokes out from the ground; a biologist would find a surprising amount of common points between Qliphoth and ducks), host them, grow from blood, create a fruit.

The Qliphoth doesn’t really _feel _emotions, either. It is, again, a tree, and its life as such does not allow for a complex understanding of the vicissitudes of the world. Sometimes, tendrils of himself die or get parasites. It’s disagreeable but ultimately insignificant, as it can grow them back. Most of the time, it feeds and serves his master's will, which makes it content.

Such is the usual extent of the Qliphoth’s emotional ladder.

Still, sometimes, the Qliphoth feels a stirring of something else…

Like this time when a new master arrives _that is the master_. There is a master upstairs, and one downstairs, _and the two _are _the master at the same time._

The Qliphoth takes a moment to compose itself – that is to say, a few hours. During that time, the master use its tendrils against the master and then the master flies away with a sword and then there are still two masters that are yet absolutely _one_. The blood is the same; the presence is about the same, with small variations that might be expected from a normal devil, like one of the masters’ utter exhaustion.

The healthier master is still on the throne the Qliphoth built for it, getting pumped with good, healthy blood that will help them grow big and strong.

The half-dead master is on the floor, and the Qliphoth is not caring for it.

The Qliphoth cannot feel shock, but it does feels unease and a strong urge to correct its mistake. If, on the one hand, it’s taking care of the master but, on the other hand, it’s not, it is failing one of its purposes, no matter how perplexedly it is doing so.

Instantly – that is to say, in a matter of hours – the Qliphoth sets itself on correcting this wrong. Engraved in its sap, his instincts rule: a master must have sustenance and a throne. Focusing on the current state of the fallen iteration, it plugs him with the tendrils it can spare from the first iteration of the master. Maybe it’s a new evolution of them: since they don’t have enough surface to be fed with _all _the tentacles the Qliphoth has to offer, they cut themselves into two to multiply nourishment until they do a graft to reunite themselves.

As a devil tree, the Qliphoth instinctively knows about cuttings and grafts.

Still, those explanations do nothing more than brush over the Qliphoth's plant-mind. Blood, thrones, master, fruits. There are the important things.

The master now has food but no throne. The Qliphoth instantly grows one for him, its surface creaking as it shapes itself in the twisted pattern the first iteration of the master likes.

The second iteration, lying face-first in what was until then normal floor, twists itself in a very wrong shape for their anatomy as the throne emerges from under them. The Qliphoth tree knows that its current owner never curves their back in that direction. Nor their neck. In fact, the master is making noises quite evocative of wood about to crack.

The Qliphoth hurriedly aborts this first throne attempt. Some of the past masters _have _laid in their throne in such a position, demon anatomy being what it is, but this is obviously not in this one’s physical ability. Accidentally breaking its master’s trunk or branches is the opposite of what the Qliphoth aims to do.

For the first time in what may be forever, the devil tree thinks.

The master is not in a position conductive to proper throne-raising. It seems they’re not moving, either, even when they have reason to do so, and the Qliphoth cannot feel their thoughts as it usually does with its owners. Are they… dormant?

What to do? Inert or not, the master must have a throne. It is simply how things are. No master ever didn’t want a throne once awake, and the fact that they are inert for now changes nothing.

After a few hours, the Qliphoth attempts a few things. It sharply lowers the flood. It creates a small localized earthquake. It even shakes a bit.

None of this works.

What can the Qliphoth _do_ to flip the master over? What cannot be called a brain, yet might, rakes itself in search of an answer.

After a few days, it comes to an epiphany: if it raises part of the master high enough, maybe they’ll end up falling in the right direction.

Something blooms in the Qliphoth’s blood-sap-filled veins, warm and triumphant. It has never felt pride, being a tree, nor does it have words for the concept, but this – this is good.

It attempts various declivities. The master slides away more or less quickly, but does not turn. No matter. The exaltation of looming victory is searing its not-mind. It _knows _it’s on the path to victory; it just need to find the right way...

After a few tries, it discovers something amazing: if it leaves the floor flat but raises a very tiny throne under part of the master, it can…

It can and does _turn them over_.

Finally, the master is in a position relatively conductive to proper throne-sitting! The Qliphoth creaks with triumph and glee, basking into these new, strange emotions. It has never felt this before. It is…

It is more than content, as it always is feeding on blood and satisfying its master; it is…

Happy. So, so very happy.

Once again, softly, it begins to raise a throne for the quiescent master. As it does, for the first time, its consciousness is brushed by fleeting thoughts-shapes from the master: a blond being embracing two iterations of the master, cradling them. Almost instantly, the vision disappears, swallowed by darkness, but this is enough.

The master wants a feeling of protection, and the Qliphoth knows how to evoke that. The instincts of good throne-shaping are, after all, carved into its veins. Reassuring skeletal figures are shaped from devil-wood, their claws clasping comfortingly at the master’s body as their empty, inhuman sockets bore into them.

The Qliphoth can’t stop feeling warm and fuzzy. It _did it_. It _got all of the master into thrones_. The challenges were hard to overcome, but it _did it_, and now it’s a changed tree, thinking thoughts that it would have never have before, feeling _things _that are so strange and new that surely no other tree – no demon – no _being _ever experienced before!

The Qliphoth’s blood-sap is warm with what it doesn’t know as thankfulness – as affection for this iteration of the master. They did torment it so, but it became so much richer from it!

It tries to project a feeling of its appreciation to the conscious antenna of the master. It reacts with surprise. The Qliphoth does not have enough empathy or social awareness to draw conclusion from it, and thus feels satisfied all the same.

The quiescent master does not spend a lot of time enjoying his lovingly crafted throne: after only one week, they end up moving. They join with themselves, move a lot, move again – the Qliphoth does not have to care for their activity once risen and need for throne-free, and thus doesn’t care. It is busy basking in its new awareness. Though it will not create a throne for any others than its master, it takes advantage of its calmer chambers to create crude benches and rough chairs for other beings (what an entity with speaking abilities would call _rocks, demons, corpses, and various manner of beasts_) that present interesting challenges for its newfound intelligence.

Some even _sit on its creations_.

The Qliphoth is so happy it almost misses when its fruit is eaten, although that was previously the pinnacle of its existence. The master keeps moving quite quickly and violently with themselves and subtly altering their existence but, truth to be told, the Qliphoth doesn’t really care.

Now, its purpose is accomplished. Now the master is triumphant, and thus content, and thus it’s content, too – no! More than that. It can keep growing tall and bloodthirsty for its master’s glory, but it can also _continue to create furniture adapted to special challenges_! Thinking! Pondering! Feelings!

It’s so, _so _happy!

It misses the moment when its roots begin to get chopped off by the master.

At first it actively attempts to defend itself, pushed by instinctive survival, but too much effort distract it from the furniture-raising and the master is so powerful that the futility of its struggle quickly become apparent.

Is it worth it?

The Qliphoth ponders. It was never able to, before, but new sentience drives it. Does it wishes to spend its last moment fighting like any demons? It would have done so, before, when it was mindless and primal. But now…

Now, if this is how it must end, the Qliphoth can find peace with it. It’ll rise again, one day. Its existence is a series of rebirths, blooming at a new master’s beckon from the seeds of its previous demise. It'll keep its new creativity, its new intelligence. It’ll just sleep for a while...

It feels something new still, something it doesn’t know to name _sadness _and _regret_. It had just achieved something so incredible and unknown yet, so precious and dear, and its time is ending already. It’s so soon! It just discovered all those feelings, those ideas! It wants so hard to keep having fun !

But the master want what they want, and surely they have their reasons, which are good for they are the master’s.

So the Qliphoth accepts this. It turns its attention to its chambers and parasites and inhabitants, where it keeps creating, and loving it, and reveling in every success and challenge and even the odd failure it’ll unravel later and grow cleverer for it.

And it is very happy, until the end.

As it dies, a single peaceful blood-sap tear drips alongside its desiccating trunk.

Trees, too, may cry.


End file.
